22/02/19

Crushing is here! Listen to the new Julia Jacklin album now

The second full-length album from Julia Jacklin, Crushing, is released today! You can get your copy of the record here, along with very limited items such as the sweatshirt worn on the album cover, signed postcards, and a flexidisk of previously unreleased single Friends.

Crushing embodies every possible meaning of its title word. It’s an album formed from sheer intensity of feeling, an in-the-moment narrative of heartbreak and infatuation. And with her storytelling centered on bodies, crossed boundaries, and smothering closeness, Crushing reveals how our physical experience of the world shapes and sometimes distorts our inner lives. The follow-up to her critically acclaimed 2016 debut Don’t Let the Kids Win, Crushing finds Julia continually acknowledging what’s expected of her, then gracefully rejecting those expectations. As a result, the album invites self-examination and a possible shift in the listener’s way of getting around the world—an effect that has everything to do with Jacklin’s openness about her own experience.

Of the record, Julia says "I really like this album, I worked hard on it and I really like listening to it. That's not usually how I feel after making something. I've finally come to accept that right now for me, making records is about capturing a time; who I am at that time, what I need to say in the best way I can say it, with minimal studio frills to cover it up. So I'm really happy to announce this one and ready for whatever things get thrown my way because of it. The cover was hard to figure out, seemed like I couldn't think of what kind of image would represent the music in the right way. Hard deadlines always make me more creative surprisingly. I was on tour in the states with my best bud Nick Mckk who takes a lot of my photos, he took my first album cover. We pulled off the highway in Pennsylvania and found a town called Krumsville. There was an antique store with a very friendly owner who let us run free inside. I got the jumper made the day before in NYC, same day I decided on the album name. I think it works."

Produced by Burke Reid (Courtney Barnett, Liam Finn) and recorded at The Grove Studios, Crushing sets Jacklin’s understated defiance against a raw yet luminous sonic backdrop. "In all the songs, you can hear every sound from every instrument; you can hear my throat and hear me breathing," she says. "It was really important to me that you can hear everything for the whole record, without any studio tricks getting in the way...With the first album I was so nervous and didn’t quite see myself as a musician yet, but after touring for two years, I’ve come to feel like I deserve to be in that space."

Julia and her band will return in March with a full UK/European tour - including a fast-selling show at London’s Electric Brixton, and sold out appearances in Brighton, Manchester and Glasgow. Julia has also been announced for two UK festival shows, Latitude and Green Man.
Tickets for all dates are available here.